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  <div class="section" id="getting-started-with-the-llvm-system">
<h1>Getting Started with the LLVM System<a class="headerlink" href="#getting-started-with-the-llvm-system" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<div class="contents local topic" id="contents">
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#overview" id="id3">Overview</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#getting-started-quickly-a-summary" id="id4">Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#requirements" id="id5">Requirements</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#hardware" id="id6">Hardware</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#software" id="id7">Software</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#host-c-toolchain-both-compiler-and-standard-library" id="id8">Host C++ Toolchain, both Compiler and Standard Library</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#getting-a-modern-host-c-toolchain" id="id9">Getting a Modern Host C++ Toolchain</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#getting-started-with-llvm" id="id10">Getting Started with LLVM</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#terminology-and-notation" id="id11">Terminology and Notation</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#unpacking-the-llvm-archives" id="id12">Unpacking the LLVM Archives</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#checkout-llvm-from-git" id="id13">Checkout LLVM from Git</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#sending-patches" id="id14">Sending patches</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#for-developers-to-commit-changes-from-git" id="id15">For developers to commit changes from Git</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#reverting-a-change-when-using-git" id="id16">Reverting a change when using Git</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#checkout-via-svn-deprecated" id="id17">Checkout via SVN (deprecated)</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#local-llvm-configuration" id="id18">Local LLVM Configuration</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#compiling-the-llvm-suite-source-code" id="id19">Compiling the LLVM Suite Source Code</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#cross-compiling-llvm" id="id20">Cross-Compiling LLVM</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#the-location-of-llvm-object-files" id="id21">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#optional-configuration-items" id="id22">Optional Configuration Items</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#directory-layout" id="id23">Directory Layout</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#llvm-examples" id="id24"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/examples</span></code></a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#llvm-include" id="id25"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/include</span></code></a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#llvm-lib" id="id26"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib</span></code></a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#llvm-projects" id="id27"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/projects</span></code></a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#llvm-test" id="id28"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/test</span></code></a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#test-suite" id="id29"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">test-suite</span></code></a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#llvm-tools" id="id30"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/tools</span></code></a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#llvm-utils" id="id31"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/utils</span></code></a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#an-example-using-the-llvm-tool-chain" id="id32">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a></p>
<ul>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#example-with-clang" id="id33">Example with clang</a></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#common-problems" id="id34">Common Problems</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference internal" href="#links" id="id35">Links</a></p></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="section" id="overview">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id3">Overview</a><a class="headerlink" href="#overview" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Welcome to the LLVM project! In order to get started, you first need to know
some basic information.</p>
<p>First, the LLVM project has multiple components. The core of the project is
itself called “LLVM”. This contains all of the tools, libraries, and header
files needed to process an intermediate representation and convert it into
object files.  It contains an assembler, disassembler, bitcode analyzer and
bitcode optimizer.  It also contains basic regression tests.</p>
<p>Another piece is the <a class="reference external" href="http://clang.llvm.org/">Clang</a> front end.  This
component compiles C, C++, Objective C, and Objective C++ code into LLVM bitcode
– and from there into object files, using LLVM.</p>
<p>There are other components as well:
the <a class="reference external" href="https://libcxx.llvm.org">libc++ C++ standard library</a>,
the <a class="reference external" href="https://lld.llvm.org">LLD linker</a>, and more.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="getting-started-quickly-a-summary">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id4">Getting Started Quickly (A Summary)</a><a class="headerlink" href="#getting-started-quickly-a-summary" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>The LLVM Getting Started documentation may be out of date.  So, the <a class="reference external" href="http://clang.llvm.org/get_started.html">Clang
Getting Started</a> page might also be a
good place to start.</p>
<p>Here’s the short story for getting up and running quickly with LLVM:</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>Read the documentation.</p></li>
<li><p>Read the documentation.</p></li>
<li><p>Remember that you were warned twice about reading the documentation.</p></li>
<li><p>Checkout LLVM (including related subprojects like Clang):</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">clone</span> <span class="pre">https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git</span></code></p></li>
<li><p>Or, on windows, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">clone</span> <span class="pre">--config</span> <span class="pre">core.autocrlf=false</span>
<span class="pre">https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git</span></code></p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p>Configure and build LLVM and Clang:.</p>
<ul>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cd</span> <span class="pre">llvm-project</span></code></p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">mkdir</span> <span class="pre">build</span></code></p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cd</span> <span class="pre">build</span></code></p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span> <span class="pre">-G</span> <span class="pre">&lt;generator&gt;</span> <span class="pre">[options]</span> <span class="pre">../llvm</span></code></p>
<p>Some common generators are:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Ninja</span></code> — for generating <a class="reference external" href="https://ninja-build.org">Ninja</a>
build files. Most llvm developers use Ninja.</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Unix</span> <span class="pre">Makefiles</span></code> — for generating make-compatible parallel makefiles.</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Visual</span> <span class="pre">Studio</span></code> — for generating Visual Studio projects and
solutions.</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Xcode</span></code> — for generating Xcode projects.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Some Common options:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS='...'</span></code> — semicolon-separated list of the LLVM
subprojects you’d like to additionally build. Can include any of: clang,
clang-tools-extra, libcxx, libcxxabi, libunwind, lldb, compiler-rt, lld,
polly, or debuginfo-tests.</p>
<p>For example, to build LLVM, Clang, libcxx, and libcxxabi, use
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS=&quot;clang;libcxx;libcxxabi&quot;</span></code>.</p>
</li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=directory</span></code> — Specify for <em>directory</em> the full
pathname of where you want the LLVM tools and libraries to be installed
(default <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">/usr/local</span></code>).</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=type</span></code> — Valid options for <em>type</em> are Debug,
Release, RelWithDebInfo, and MinSizeRel. Default is Debug.</p></li>
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=On</span></code> — Compile with assertion checks enabled
(default is Yes for Debug builds, No for all other build types).</p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p>Run your build tool of choice!</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>The default target (i.e. <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">ninja</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">make</span></code>) will build all of LLVM.</p></li>
<li><p>The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">check-all</span></code> target (i.e. <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">ninja</span> <span class="pre">check-all</span></code>) will run the
regression tests to ensure everything is in working order.</p></li>
<li><p>CMake will generate build targets for each tool and library, and most
LLVM sub-projects generate their own <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">check-&lt;project&gt;</span></code> target.</p></li>
<li><p>Running a serial build will be <em>slow</em>.  Make sure you run a parallel
build. That’s already done by default in Ninja; for <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">make</span></code>, use
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">make</span> <span class="pre">-j</span> <span class="pre">NNN</span></code> (with an appropriate value of NNN, e.g. number of CPUs
you have.)</p></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><p>For more information see <a class="reference external" href="CMake.html">CMake</a></p></li>
<li><p>If you get an “internal compiler error (ICE)” or test failures, see
<a class="reference internal" href="#below">below</a>.</p></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Consult the <a class="reference internal" href="#getting-started-with-llvm">Getting Started with LLVM</a> section for detailed information on
configuring and compiling LLVM.  Go to <a class="reference internal" href="#directory-layout">Directory Layout</a> to learn about the
layout of the source code tree.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="requirements">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id5">Requirements</a><a class="headerlink" href="#requirements" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>Before you begin to use the LLVM system, review the requirements given below.
This may save you some trouble by knowing ahead of time what hardware and
software you will need.</p>
<div class="section" id="hardware">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id6">Hardware</a><a class="headerlink" href="#hardware" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>LLVM is known to work on the following host platforms:</p>
<table class="docutils align-default">
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 35%" />
<col style="width: 40%" />
<col style="width: 25%" />
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="row-odd"><th class="head"><p>OS</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>Arch</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>Compilers</p></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>Linux</p></td>
<td><p>x86<sup>1</sup></p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>Linux</p></td>
<td><p>amd64</p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>Linux</p></td>
<td><p>ARM</p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>Linux</p></td>
<td><p>PowerPC</p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>Solaris</p></td>
<td><p>V9 (Ultrasparc)</p></td>
<td><p>GCC</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>FreeBSD</p></td>
<td><p>x86<sup>1</sup></p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>FreeBSD</p></td>
<td><p>amd64</p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>NetBSD</p></td>
<td><p>x86<sup>1</sup></p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>NetBSD</p></td>
<td><p>amd64</p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>macOS<sup>2</sup></p></td>
<td><p>PowerPC</p></td>
<td><p>GCC</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>macOS</p></td>
<td><p>x86</p></td>
<td><p>GCC, Clang</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>Cygwin/Win32</p></td>
<td><p>x86<sup>1, 3</sup></p></td>
<td><p>GCC</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>Windows</p></td>
<td><p>x86<sup>1</sup></p></td>
<td><p>Visual Studio</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>Windows x64</p></td>
<td><p>x86-64</p></td>
<td><p>Visual Studio</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>Code generation supported for Pentium processors and up</p></li>
<li><p>Code generation supported for 32-bit ABI only</p></li>
<li><p>To use LLVM modules on Win32-based system, you may configure LLVM
with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-DBUILD_SHARED_LIBS=On</span></code>.</p></li>
</ol>
</div>
<p>Note that Debug builds require a lot of time and disk space.  An LLVM-only build
will need about 1-3 GB of space.  A full build of LLVM and Clang will need around
15-20 GB of disk space.  The exact space requirements will vary by system.  (It
is so large because of all the debugging information and the fact that the
libraries are statically linked into multiple tools).</p>
<p>If you are space-constrained, you can build only selected tools or only
selected targets.  The Release build requires considerably less space.</p>
<p>The LLVM suite <em>may</em> compile on other platforms, but it is not guaranteed to do
so.  If compilation is successful, the LLVM utilities should be able to
assemble, disassemble, analyze, and optimize LLVM bitcode.  Code generation
should work as well, although the generated native code may not work on your
platform.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="software">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id7">Software</a><a class="headerlink" href="#software" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Compiling LLVM requires that you have several software packages installed. The
table below lists those required packages. The Package column is the usual name
for the software package that LLVM depends on. The Version column provides
“known to work” versions of the package. The Notes column describes how LLVM
uses the package and provides other details.</p>
<table class="docutils align-default">
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 52%" />
<col style="width: 11%" />
<col style="width: 37%" />
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="row-odd"><th class="head"><p>Package</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>Version</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>Notes</p></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p><a class="reference external" href="http://savannah.gnu.org/projects/make">GNU Make</a></p></td>
<td><p>3.79, 3.79.1</p></td>
<td><p>Makefile/build processor</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p><a class="reference external" href="http://gcc.gnu.org/">GCC</a></p></td>
<td><p>&gt;=5.1.0</p></td>
<td><p>C/C++ compiler<sup>1</sup></p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p><a class="reference external" href="http://www.python.org/">python</a></p></td>
<td><p>&gt;=2.7</p></td>
<td><p>Automated test suite<sup>2</sup></p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p><a class="reference external" href="http://zlib.net">zlib</a></p></td>
<td><p>&gt;=1.2.3.4</p></td>
<td><p>Compression library<sup>3</sup></p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<ol class="arabic simple">
<li><p>Only the C and C++ languages are needed so there’s no need to build the
other languages for LLVM’s purposes. See <cite>below</cite> for specific version
info.</p></li>
<li><p>Only needed if you want to run the automated test suite in the
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/test</span></code> directory.</p></li>
<li><p>Optional, adds compression / uncompression capabilities to selected LLVM
tools.</p></li>
</ol>
</div>
<p>Additionally, your compilation host is expected to have the usual plethora of
Unix utilities. Specifically:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><strong>ar</strong> — archive library builder</p></li>
<li><p><strong>bzip2</strong> — bzip2 command for distribution generation</p></li>
<li><p><strong>bunzip2</strong> — bunzip2 command for distribution checking</p></li>
<li><p><strong>chmod</strong> — change permissions on a file</p></li>
<li><p><strong>cat</strong> — output concatenation utility</p></li>
<li><p><strong>cp</strong> — copy files</p></li>
<li><p><strong>date</strong> — print the current date/time</p></li>
<li><p><strong>echo</strong> — print to standard output</p></li>
<li><p><strong>egrep</strong> — extended regular expression search utility</p></li>
<li><p><strong>find</strong> — find files/dirs in a file system</p></li>
<li><p><strong>grep</strong> — regular expression search utility</p></li>
<li><p><strong>gzip</strong> — gzip command for distribution generation</p></li>
<li><p><strong>gunzip</strong> — gunzip command for distribution checking</p></li>
<li><p><strong>install</strong> — install directories/files</p></li>
<li><p><strong>mkdir</strong> — create a directory</p></li>
<li><p><strong>mv</strong> — move (rename) files</p></li>
<li><p><strong>ranlib</strong> — symbol table builder for archive libraries</p></li>
<li><p><strong>rm</strong> — remove (delete) files and directories</p></li>
<li><p><strong>sed</strong> — stream editor for transforming output</p></li>
<li><p><strong>sh</strong> — Bourne shell for make build scripts</p></li>
<li><p><strong>tar</strong> — tape archive for distribution generation</p></li>
<li><p><strong>test</strong> — test things in file system</p></li>
<li><p><strong>unzip</strong> — unzip command for distribution checking</p></li>
<li><p><strong>zip</strong> — zip command for distribution generation</p></li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="section" id="host-c-toolchain-both-compiler-and-standard-library">
<span id="check-here"></span><span id="below"></span><h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id8">Host C++ Toolchain, both Compiler and Standard Library</a><a class="headerlink" href="#host-c-toolchain-both-compiler-and-standard-library" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>LLVM is very demanding of the host C++ compiler, and as such tends to expose
bugs in the compiler. We also attempt to follow improvements and developments in
the C++ language and library reasonably closely. As such, we require a modern
host C++ toolchain, both compiler and standard library, in order to build LLVM.</p>
<p>LLVM is written using the subset of C++ documented in <a class="reference internal" href="CodingStandards.html"><span class="doc">coding
standards</span></a>. To enforce this language version, we check the most
popular host toolchains for specific minimum versions in our build systems:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>Clang 3.5</p></li>
<li><p>Apple Clang 6.0</p></li>
<li><p>GCC 5.1</p></li>
<li><p>Visual Studio 2017</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The below versions currently soft-error as we transition to the new compiler
versions listed above. The LLVM codebase is currently known to compile correctly
with the following compilers, though this will change in the near future:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>Clang 3.1</p></li>
<li><p>Apple Clang 3.1</p></li>
<li><p>GCC 4.8</p></li>
<li><p>Visual Studio 2017</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Anything older than these toolchains <em>may</em> work, but will require forcing the
build system with a special option and is not really a supported host platform.
Also note that older versions of these compilers have often crashed or
miscompiled LLVM.</p>
<p>For less widely used host toolchains such as ICC or xlC, be aware that a very
recent version may be required to support all of the C++ features used in LLVM.</p>
<p>We track certain versions of software that are <em>known</em> to fail when used as
part of the host toolchain. These even include linkers at times.</p>
<p><strong>GNU ld 2.16.X</strong>. Some 2.16.X versions of the ld linker will produce very long
warning messages complaining that some “<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">.gnu.linkonce.t.*</span></code>” symbol was
defined in a discarded section. You can safely ignore these messages as they are
erroneous and the linkage is correct.  These messages disappear using ld 2.17.</p>
<p><strong>GNU binutils 2.17</strong>: Binutils 2.17 contains <a class="reference external" href="http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=3111">a bug</a> which causes huge link
times (minutes instead of seconds) when building LLVM.  We recommend upgrading
to a newer version (2.17.50.0.4 or later).</p>
<p><strong>GNU Binutils 2.19.1 Gold</strong>: This version of Gold contained <a class="reference external" href="http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=9836">a bug</a> which causes
intermittent failures when building LLVM with position independent code.  The
symptom is an error about cyclic dependencies.  We recommend upgrading to a
newer version of Gold.</p>
<div class="section" id="getting-a-modern-host-c-toolchain">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="#id9">Getting a Modern Host C++ Toolchain</a><a class="headerlink" href="#getting-a-modern-host-c-toolchain" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<p>This section mostly applies to Linux and older BSDs. On macOS, you should
have a sufficiently modern Xcode, or you will likely need to upgrade until you
do. Windows does not have a “system compiler”, so you must install either Visual
Studio 2017 or a recent version of mingw64. FreeBSD 10.0 and newer have a modern
Clang as the system compiler.</p>
<p>However, some Linux distributions and some other or older BSDs sometimes have
extremely old versions of GCC. These steps attempt to help you upgrade you
compiler even on such a system. However, if at all possible, we encourage you
to use a recent version of a distribution with a modern system compiler that
meets these requirements. Note that it is tempting to install a prior
version of Clang and libc++ to be the host compiler, however libc++ was not
well tested or set up to build on Linux until relatively recently. As
a consequence, this guide suggests just using libstdc++ and a modern GCC as the
initial host in a bootstrap, and then using Clang (and potentially libc++).</p>
<p>The first step is to get a recent GCC toolchain installed. The most common
distribution on which users have struggled with the version requirements is
Ubuntu Precise, 12.04 LTS. For this distribution, one easy option is to install
the <a class="reference external" href="https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-toolchain-r/+archive/test">toolchain testing PPA</a> and use it to install a modern GCC. There is
a really nice discussions of this on the <a class="reference external" href="https://askubuntu.com/questions/466651/how-do-i-use-the-latest-gcc-on-ubuntu/581497#58149">ask ubuntu stack exchange</a> and a
<a class="reference external" href="https://gist.github.com/application2000/73fd6f4bf1be6600a2cf9f56315a2d91">github gist</a> with updated commands. However, not all users can use PPAs and
there are many other distributions, so it may be necessary (or just useful, if
you’re here you <em>are</em> doing compiler development after all) to build and install
GCC from source. It is also quite easy to do these days.</p>
<p>Easy steps for installing GCC 5.1.0:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="m">5</span>.1.0
<span class="gp">%</span> wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>/gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>.tar.bz2
<span class="gp">%</span> wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gcc/gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>/gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>.tar.bz2.sig
<span class="gp">%</span> wget https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-keyring.gpg
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nv">signature_invalid</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="sb">`</span>gpg --verify --no-default-keyring --keyring ./gnu-keyring.gpg gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>.tar.bz2.sig<span class="sb">`</span>
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="k">if</span> <span class="o">[</span> <span class="nv">$signature_invalid</span> <span class="o">]</span><span class="p">;</span> <span class="k">then</span> <span class="nb">echo</span> <span class="s2">&quot;Invalid signature&quot;</span> <span class="p">;</span> <span class="nb">exit</span> <span class="m">1</span> <span class="p">;</span> <span class="k">fi</span>
<span class="gp">%</span> tar -xvjf gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>.tar.bz2
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">cd</span> gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>
<span class="gp">%</span> ./contrib/download_prerequisites
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">cd</span> ..
<span class="gp">%</span> mkdir gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>-build
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">cd</span> gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>-build
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nv">$PWD</span>/../gcc-<span class="si">${</span><span class="nv">gcc_version</span><span class="si">}</span>/configure --prefix<span class="o">=</span><span class="nv">$HOME</span>/toolchains --enable-languages<span class="o">=</span>c,c++
<span class="gp">%</span> make -j<span class="k">$(</span>nproc<span class="k">)</span>
<span class="gp">%</span> make install
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>For more details, check out the excellent <a class="reference external" href="https://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/InstallingGCC">GCC wiki entry</a>, where I got most
of this information from.</p>
<p>Once you have a GCC toolchain, configure your build of LLVM to use the new
toolchain for your host compiler and C++ standard library. Because the new
version of libstdc++ is not on the system library search path, you need to pass
extra linker flags so that it can be found at link time (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-L</span></code>) and at runtime
(<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-rpath</span></code>). If you are using CMake, this invocation should produce working
binaries:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> mkdir build
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">cd</span> build
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nv">CC</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nv">$HOME</span>/toolchains/bin/gcc <span class="nv">CXX</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nv">$HOME</span>/toolchains/bin/g++ <span class="se">\</span>
  cmake .. -DCMAKE_CXX_LINK_FLAGS<span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">&quot;-Wl,-rpath,</span><span class="nv">$HOME</span><span class="s2">/toolchains/lib64 -L</span><span class="nv">$HOME</span><span class="s2">/toolchains/lib64&quot;</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>If you fail to set rpath, most LLVM binaries will fail on startup with a message
from the loader similar to <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">libstdc++.so.6:</span> <span class="pre">version</span> <span class="pre">`GLIBCXX_3.4.20'</span> <span class="pre">not</span>
<span class="pre">found</span></code>. This means you need to tweak the -rpath linker flag.</p>
<p>When you build Clang, you will need to give <em>it</em> access to modern C++
standard library in order to use it as your new host in part of a bootstrap.
There are two easy ways to do this, either build (and install) libc++ along
with Clang and then use it with the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-stdlib=libc++</span></code> compile and link flag,
or install Clang into the same prefix (<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">$HOME/toolchains</span></code> above) as GCC.
Clang will look within its own prefix for libstdc++ and use it if found. You
can also add an explicit prefix for Clang to look in for a GCC toolchain with
the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">--gcc-toolchain=/opt/my/gcc/prefix</span></code> flag, passing it to both compile and
link commands when using your just-built-Clang to bootstrap.</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="getting-started-with-llvm">
<span id="id1"></span><h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id10">Getting Started with LLVM</a><a class="headerlink" href="#getting-started-with-llvm" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>The remainder of this guide is meant to get you up and running with LLVM and to
give you some basic information about the LLVM environment.</p>
<p>The later sections of this guide describe the <a class="reference internal" href="#general-layout">general layout</a> of the LLVM
source tree, a <a class="reference internal" href="#simple-example">simple example</a> using the LLVM tool chain, and <a class="reference internal" href="#links">links</a> to find
more information about LLVM or to get help via e-mail.</p>
<div class="section" id="terminology-and-notation">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id11">Terminology and Notation</a><a class="headerlink" href="#terminology-and-notation" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Throughout this manual, the following names are used to denote paths specific to
the local system and working environment.  <em>These are not environment variables
you need to set but just strings used in the rest of this document below</em>.  In
any of the examples below, simply replace each of these names with the
appropriate pathname on your local system.  All these paths are absolute:</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">SRC_ROOT</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>This is the top level directory of the LLVM source tree.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">OBJ_ROOT</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>This is the top level directory of the LLVM object tree (i.e. the tree where
object files and compiled programs will be placed.  It can be the same as
SRC_ROOT).</p>
</div></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="section" id="unpacking-the-llvm-archives">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id12">Unpacking the LLVM Archives</a><a class="headerlink" href="#unpacking-the-llvm-archives" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>If you have the LLVM distribution, you will need to unpack it before you can
begin to compile it.  LLVM is distributed as a number of different
subprojects. Each one has its own download which is a TAR archive that is
compressed with the gzip program.</p>
<p>The files are as follows, with <em>x.y</em> marking the version number:</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-x.y.tar.gz</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Source release for the LLVM libraries and tools.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cfe-x.y.tar.gz</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Source release for the Clang frontend.</p>
</div></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="section" id="checkout-llvm-from-git">
<span id="checkout"></span><h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id13">Checkout LLVM from Git</a><a class="headerlink" href="#checkout-llvm-from-git" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>You can also checkout the source code for LLVM from Git. While the LLVM
project’s official source-code repository is Subversion, we are in the process
of migrating to git. We currently recommend that all developers use Git for
day-to-day development.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>Passing <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">--config</span> <span class="pre">core.autocrlf=false</span></code> should not be required in
the future after we adjust the .gitattribute settings correctly, but
is required for Windows users at the time of this writing.</p>
</div>
<p>Simply run:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> git clone https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>or on Windows,</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> git clone --config core.autocrlf<span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">false</span> https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project.git
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>This will create an ‘<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-project</span></code>’ directory in the current directory and
fully populate it with all of the source code, test directories, and local
copies of documentation files for LLVM and all the related subprojects. Note
that unlike the tarballs, which contain each subproject in a separate file, the
git repository contains all of the projects together.</p>
<p>If you want to get a specific release (as opposed to the most recent revision),
you can check out a tag after cloning the repository. E.g., <cite>git checkout
llvmorg-6.0.1</cite> inside the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-project</span></code> directory created by the above
command.  Use <cite>git tag -l</cite> to list all of them.</p>
<div class="section" id="sending-patches">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="#id14">Sending patches</a><a class="headerlink" href="#sending-patches" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<p>Please read <a class="reference external" href="DeveloperPolicy.html#one-off-patches">Developer Policy</a>, too.</p>
<p>We don’t currently accept github pull requests, so you’ll need to send patches
either via emailing to llvm-commits, or, preferably, via <a class="reference internal" href="Phabricator.html#phabricator-reviews"><span class="std std-ref">Phabricator</span></a>.</p>
<p>You’ll generally want to make sure your branch has a single commit,
corresponding to the review you wish to send, up-to-date with the upstream
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">origin/master</span></code> branch, and doesn’t contain merges. Once you have that, you
can use <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">show</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">format-patch</span></code> to output the diff, and attach it
to a Phabricator review (or to an email message).</p>
<p>However, using the “Arcanist” tool is often easier. After <a class="reference external" href="https://secure.phabricator.com/book/phabricator/article/arcanist_quick_start/">installing
arcanist</a>, you can upload the latest commit using:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> arc diff HEAD~1
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Additionally, before sending a patch for review, please also try to ensure it’s
formatted properly. We use <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">clang-format</span></code> for this, which has git integration
through the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git-clang-format</span></code> script. On some systems, it may already be
installed (or be installable via your package manager). If so, you can simply
run it – the following command will format only the code changed in the most
recent commit:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> git clang-format HEAD~1
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Note that this modifies the files, but doesn’t commit them – you’ll likely want
to run</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> git commit --amend -a
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>in order to update the last commit with all pending changes.</p>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>If you don’t already have <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">clang-format</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">clang-format</span></code> installed
on your system, the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">clang-format</span></code> binary will be built alongside clang, and
the git integration can be run from
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">clang/tools/clang-format/git-clang-format</span></code>.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="for-developers-to-commit-changes-from-git">
<span id="commit-from-git"></span><h4><a class="toc-backref" href="#id15">For developers to commit changes from Git</a><a class="headerlink" href="#for-developers-to-commit-changes-from-git" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<p>A helper script is provided in <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/utils/git-svn/git-llvm</span></code>. After you add it
to your path, you can push committed changes upstream with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">llvm</span>
<span class="pre">push</span></code>. While this creates a Subversion checkout and patches it under the hood,
it does not require you to have interaction with it.</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">export</span> <span class="nv">PATH</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="nv">$PATH</span>:<span class="nv">$TOP_LEVEL_DIR</span>/llvm-project/llvm/utils/git-svn/
<span class="gp">%</span> git llvm push
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Within a couple minutes after pushing to subversion, the svn commit will have
been converted back to a Git commit, and made its way into the official Git
repository. At that point, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">pull</span></code> should get back the changes as they were
committed.</p>
<p>You’ll likely want to <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">pull</span> <span class="pre">--rebase</span></code> to get the official git commit
downloaded back to your repository. The SVN revision numbers of each commit can
be found at the end of the commit message, e.g. <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-svn:</span> <span class="pre">350914</span></code>.</p>
<p>You may also find the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-n</span></code> flag useful, like <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">llvm</span> <span class="pre">push</span> <span class="pre">-n</span></code>. This runs
through all the steps of committing _without_ actually doing the commit, and
tell you what it would have done. That can be useful if you’re unsure whether
the right thing will happen.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="reverting-a-change-when-using-git">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="#id16">Reverting a change when using Git</a><a class="headerlink" href="#reverting-a-change-when-using-git" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<p>If you’re using Git and need to revert a patch, Git needs to be supplied a
commit hash, not an svn revision. To make things easier, you can use
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">llvm</span> <span class="pre">revert</span></code> to revert with either an SVN revision or a Git hash instead.</p>
<p>Additionally, you can first run with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">llvm</span> <span class="pre">revert</span> <span class="pre">-n</span></code> to print which Git
commands will run, without doing anything.</p>
<p>Running <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">llvm</span> <span class="pre">revert</span></code> will only revert things in your local repository. To
push the revert upstream, you still need to run <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">llvm</span> <span class="pre">push</span></code> as described
earlier.</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> git llvm revert rNNNNNN       <span class="c1"># Revert by SVN id</span>
<span class="gp">%</span> git llvm revert abcdef123456  <span class="c1"># Revert by Git commit hash</span>
<span class="gp">%</span> git llvm revert -n rNNNNNN    <span class="c1"># Print the commands without doing anything</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="checkout-via-svn-deprecated">
<h4><a class="toc-backref" href="#id17">Checkout via SVN (deprecated)</a><a class="headerlink" href="#checkout-via-svn-deprecated" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h4>
<p>Until we have fully migrated to Git, you may also get a fresh copy of
the code from the official Subversion repository.</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cd</span> <span class="pre">where-you-want-llvm-to-live</span></code></p></li>
<li><p>Read-Only: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">svn</span> <span class="pre">co</span> <span class="pre">http://llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk</span> <span class="pre">llvm</span></code></p></li>
<li><p>Read-Write: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">svn</span> <span class="pre">co</span> <span class="pre">https://user&#64;llvm.org/svn/llvm-project/llvm/trunk</span> <span class="pre">llvm</span></code></p></li>
</ul>
<p>This will create an ‘<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm</span></code>’ directory in the current directory and fully
populate it with the LLVM source code, Makefiles, test directories, and local
copies of documentation files.</p>
<p>If you want to get a specific release (as opposed to the most recent revision),
you can check it out from the ‘<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tags</span></code>’ directory (instead of ‘<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">trunk</span></code>’). The
following releases are located in the following subdirectories of the ‘<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tags</span></code>’
directory:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p>Release 3.5.0 and later: <strong>RELEASE_350/final</strong> and so on</p></li>
<li><p>Release 2.9 through 3.4: <strong>RELEASE_29/final</strong> and so on</p></li>
<li><p>Release 1.1 through 2.8: <strong>RELEASE_11</strong> and so on</p></li>
<li><p>Release 1.0: <strong>RELEASE_1</strong></p></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="local-llvm-configuration">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id18">Local LLVM Configuration</a><a class="headerlink" href="#local-llvm-configuration" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Once checked out repository, the LLVM suite source code must be configured
before being built. This process uses CMake.  Unlinke the normal <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">configure</span></code>
script, CMake generates the build files in whatever format you request as well
as various <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">*.inc</span></code> files, and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/include/Config/config.h</span></code>.</p>
<p>Variables are passed to <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span></code> on the command line using the format
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-D&lt;variable</span> <span class="pre">name&gt;=&lt;value&gt;</span></code>. The following variables are some common options
used by people developing LLVM.</p>
<table class="docutils align-default">
<colgroup>
<col style="width: 32%" />
<col style="width: 68%" />
</colgroup>
<thead>
<tr class="row-odd"><th class="head"><p>Variable</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>Purpose</p></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>CMAKE_C_COMPILER</p></td>
<td><p>Tells <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span></code> which C compiler to use. By
default, this will be /usr/bin/cc.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>CMAKE_CXX_COMPILER</p></td>
<td><p>Tells <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span></code> which C++ compiler to use. By
default, this will be /usr/bin/c++.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE</p></td>
<td><p>Tells <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span></code> what type of build you are trying
to generate files for. Valid options are Debug,
Release, RelWithDebInfo, and MinSizeRel. Default
is Debug.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX</p></td>
<td><p>Specifies the install directory to target when
running the install action of the build files.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>PYTHON_EXECUTABLE</p></td>
<td><p>Forces CMake to use a specific Python version by
passing a path to a Python interpreter. By default
the Python version of the interpreter in your PATH
is used.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>LLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD</p></td>
<td><p>A semicolon delimited list controlling which
targets will be built and linked into llvm.
The default list is defined as
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">LLVM_ALL_TARGETS</span></code>, and can be set to include
out-of-tree targets. The default value includes:
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">AArch64,</span> <span class="pre">AMDGPU,</span> <span class="pre">ARM,</span> <span class="pre">BPF,</span> <span class="pre">Hexagon,</span> <span class="pre">Mips,</span>
<span class="pre">MSP430,</span> <span class="pre">NVPTX,</span> <span class="pre">PowerPC,</span> <span class="pre">Sparc,</span> <span class="pre">SystemZ,</span> <span class="pre">X86,</span>
<span class="pre">XCore</span></code>.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>LLVM_ENABLE_DOXYGEN</p></td>
<td><p>Build doxygen-based documentation from the source
code This is disabled by default because it is
slow and generates a lot of output.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>LLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS</p></td>
<td><p>A semicolon-delimited list selecting which of the
other LLVM subprojects to additionally build. (Only
effective when using a side-by-side project layout
e.g. via git). The default list is empty. Can
include: clang, libcxx, libcxxabi, libunwind, lldb,
compiler-rt, lld, polly, or debuginfo-tests.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>LLVM_ENABLE_SPHINX</p></td>
<td><p>Build sphinx-based documentation from the source
code. This is disabled by default because it is
slow and generates a lot of output. Sphinx version
1.5 or later recommended.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-odd"><td><p>LLVM_BUILD_LLVM_DYLIB</p></td>
<td><p>Generate libLLVM.so. This library contains a
default set of LLVM components that can be
overridden with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">LLVM_DYLIB_COMPONENTS</span></code>. The
default contains most of LLVM and is defined in
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tools/llvm-shlib/CMakelists.txt</span></code>.</p></td>
</tr>
<tr class="row-even"><td><p>LLVM_OPTIMIZED_TABLEGEN</p></td>
<td><p>Builds a release tablegen that gets used during
the LLVM build. This can dramatically speed up
debug builds.</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>To configure LLVM, follow these steps:</p>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>Change directory into the object root directory:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">cd</span> OBJ_ROOT
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
<li><p>Run the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span></code>:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> cmake -G <span class="s2">&quot;Unix Makefiles&quot;</span> -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX<span class="o">=</span>/install/path
<span class="go">  [other options] SRC_ROOT</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div class="section" id="compiling-the-llvm-suite-source-code">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id19">Compiling the LLVM Suite Source Code</a><a class="headerlink" href="#compiling-the-llvm-suite-source-code" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Unlike with autotools, with CMake your build type is defined at configuration.
If you want to change your build type, you can re-run cmake with the following
invocation:</p>
<blockquote>
<div><div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> cmake -G <span class="s2">&quot;Unix Makefiles&quot;</span> -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE<span class="o">=</span><span class="nb">type</span> SRC_ROOT
</pre></div>
</div>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Between runs, CMake preserves the values set for all options. CMake has the
following build types defined:</p>
<p>Debug</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>These builds are the default. The build system will compile the tools and
libraries unoptimized, with debugging information, and asserts enabled.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Release</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>For these builds, the build system will compile the tools and libraries
with optimizations enabled and not generate debug info. CMakes default
optimization level is -O3. This can be configured by setting the
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELEASE</span></code> variable on the CMake command line.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>RelWithDebInfo</p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>These builds are useful when debugging. They generate optimized binaries with
debug information. CMakes default optimization level is -O2. This can be
configured by setting the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS_RELWITHDEBINFO</span></code> variable on the
CMake command line.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p>Once you have LLVM configured, you can build it by entering the <em>OBJ_ROOT</em>
directory and issuing the following command:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> make
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>If the build fails, please <a class="reference internal" href="#check-here">check here</a> to see if you are using a version of
GCC that is known not to compile LLVM.</p>
<p>If you have multiple processors in your machine, you may wish to use some of the
parallel build options provided by GNU Make.  For example, you could use the
command:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> make -j2
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>There are several special targets which are useful when working with the LLVM
source code:</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">make</span> <span class="pre">clean</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Removes all files generated by the build.  This includes object files,
generated C/C++ files, libraries, and executables.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">make</span> <span class="pre">install</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Installs LLVM header files, libraries, tools, and documentation in a hierarchy
under <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">$PREFIX</span></code>, specified with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX</span></code>, which
defaults to <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">/usr/local</span></code>.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">make</span> <span class="pre">docs-llvm-html</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>If configured with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-DLLVM_ENABLE_SPHINX=On</span></code>, this will generate a directory
at <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">OBJ_ROOT/docs/html</span></code> which contains the HTML formatted documentation.</p>
</div></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="section" id="cross-compiling-llvm">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id20">Cross-Compiling LLVM</a><a class="headerlink" href="#cross-compiling-llvm" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>It is possible to cross-compile LLVM itself. That is, you can create LLVM
executables and libraries to be hosted on a platform different from the platform
where they are built (a Canadian Cross build). To generate build files for
cross-compiling CMake provides a variable <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">CMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE</span></code> which can
define compiler flags and variables used during the CMake test operations.</p>
<p>The result of such a build is executables that are not runnable on the build
host but can be executed on the target. As an example the following CMake
invocation can generate build files targeting iOS. This will work on macOS
with the latest Xcode:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> cmake -G <span class="s2">&quot;Ninja&quot;</span> -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES<span class="o">=</span><span class="s2">&quot;armv7;armv7s;arm64&quot;</span>
<span class="go">  -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=&lt;PATH_TO_LLVM&gt;/cmake/platforms/iOS.cmake</span>
<span class="go">  -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DLLVM_BUILD_RUNTIME=Off -DLLVM_INCLUDE_TESTS=Off</span>
<span class="go">  -DLLVM_INCLUDE_EXAMPLES=Off -DLLVM_ENABLE_BACKTRACES=Off [options]</span>
<span class="go">  &lt;PATH_TO_LLVM&gt;</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Note: There are some additional flags that need to be passed when building for
iOS due to limitations in the iOS SDK.</p>
<p>Check <a class="reference internal" href="HowToCrossCompileLLVM.html"><span class="doc">How To Cross-Compile Clang/LLVM using Clang/LLVM</span></a> and <a class="reference external" href="http://clang.llvm.org/docs/CrossCompilation.html">Clang docs on how to cross-compile in general</a> for more information
about cross-compiling.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="the-location-of-llvm-object-files">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id21">The Location of LLVM Object Files</a><a class="headerlink" href="#the-location-of-llvm-object-files" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>The LLVM build system is capable of sharing a single LLVM source tree among
several LLVM builds.  Hence, it is possible to build LLVM for several different
platforms or configurations using the same source tree.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Change directory to where the LLVM object files should live:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">cd</span> OBJ_ROOT
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
<li><p>Run <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span></code>:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> cmake -G <span class="s2">&quot;Unix Makefiles&quot;</span> SRC_ROOT
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The LLVM build will create a structure underneath <em>OBJ_ROOT</em> that matches the
LLVM source tree. At each level where source files are present in the source
tree there will be a corresponding <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">CMakeFiles</span></code> directory in the <em>OBJ_ROOT</em>.
Underneath that directory there is another directory with a name ending in
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">.dir</span></code> under which you’ll find object files for each source.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<blockquote>
<div><div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">cd</span> llvm_build_dir
<span class="gp">%</span> find lib/Support/ -name APFloat*
<span class="go">lib/Support/CMakeFiles/LLVMSupport.dir/APFloat.cpp.o</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</div></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="section" id="optional-configuration-items">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id22">Optional Configuration Items</a><a class="headerlink" href="#optional-configuration-items" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>If you’re running on a Linux system that supports the <a class="reference external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/binfmt_misc">binfmt_misc</a>
module, and you have root access on the system, you can set your system up to
execute LLVM bitcode files directly. To do this, use commands like this (the
first command may not be required if you are already using the module):</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> mount -t binfmt_misc none /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
<span class="gp">%</span> <span class="nb">echo</span> <span class="s1">&#39;:llvm:M::BC::/path/to/lli:&#39;</span> &gt; /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc/register
<span class="gp">%</span> chmod u+x hello.bc   <span class="o">(</span><span class="k">if</span> needed<span class="o">)</span>
<span class="gp">%</span> ./hello.bc
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>This allows you to execute LLVM bitcode files directly.  On Debian, you can also
use this command instead of the ‘echo’ command above:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> sudo update-binfmts --install llvm /path/to/lli --magic <span class="s1">&#39;BC&#39;</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="directory-layout">
<span id="general-layout"></span><span id="program-layout"></span><h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id23">Directory Layout</a><a class="headerlink" href="#directory-layout" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>One useful source of information about the LLVM source base is the LLVM <a class="reference external" href="http://www.doxygen.org/">doxygen</a> documentation available at
<a class="reference external" href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">http://llvm.org/doxygen/</a>.  The following is a brief introduction to code
layout:</p>
<div class="section" id="llvm-examples">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id24"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/examples</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#llvm-examples" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Simple examples using the LLVM IR and JIT.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="llvm-include">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id25"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/include</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#llvm-include" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Public header files exported from the LLVM library. The three main subdirectories:</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/include/llvm</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>All LLVM-specific header files, and  subdirectories for different portions of
LLVM: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Analysis</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">CodeGen</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Target</span></code>, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">Transforms</span></code>, etc…</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/include/llvm/Support</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Generic support libraries provided with LLVM but not necessarily specific to
LLVM. For example, some C++ STL utilities and a Command Line option processing
library store header files here.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/include/llvm/Config</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Header files configured by <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span></code>.  They wrap “standard” UNIX and
C header files.  Source code can include these header files which
automatically take care of the conditional #includes that <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">cmake</span></code>
generates.</p>
</div></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="section" id="llvm-lib">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id26"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#llvm-lib" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Most source files are here. By putting code in libraries, LLVM makes it easy to
share code among the <a class="reference internal" href="#tools">tools</a>.</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/IR/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Core LLVM source files that implement core classes like Instruction and
BasicBlock.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/AsmParser/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Source code for the LLVM assembly language parser library.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/Bitcode/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Code for reading and writing bitcode.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/Analysis/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>A variety of program analyses, such as Call Graphs, Induction Variables,
Natural Loop Identification, etc.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/Transforms/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>IR-to-IR program transformations, such as Aggressive Dead Code Elimination,
Sparse Conditional Constant Propagation, Inlining, Loop Invariant Code Motion,
Dead Global Elimination, and many others.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/Target/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Files describing target architectures for code generation.  For example,
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/Target/X86</span></code> holds the X86 machine description.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/CodeGen/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>The major parts of the code generator: Instruction Selector, Instruction
Scheduling, and Register Allocation.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/MC/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>(FIXME: T.B.D.)  ….?</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/ExecutionEngine/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Libraries for directly executing bitcode at runtime in interpreted and
JIT-compiled scenarios.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/lib/Support/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Source code that corresponding to the header files in <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/include/ADT/</span></code>
and <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/include/Support/</span></code>.</p>
</div></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="section" id="llvm-projects">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id27"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/projects</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#llvm-projects" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Projects not strictly part of LLVM but shipped with LLVM. This is also the
directory for creating your own LLVM-based projects which leverage the LLVM
build system.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="llvm-test">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id28"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/test</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#llvm-test" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Feature and regression tests and other sanity checks on LLVM infrastructure. These
are intended to run quickly and cover a lot of territory without being exhaustive.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="test-suite">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id29"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">test-suite</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#test-suite" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>A comprehensive correctness, performance, and benchmarking test suite
for LLVM.  This comes in a <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">separate</span> <span class="pre">git</span> <span class="pre">repository</span>
<span class="pre">&lt;https://github.com/llvm/llvm-test-suite&gt;</span></code>, because it contains a
large amount of third-party code under a variety of licenses. For
details see the <a class="reference internal" href="TestingGuide.html"><span class="doc">Testing Guide</span></a> document.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="llvm-tools">
<span id="tools"></span><h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id30"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/tools</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#llvm-tools" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Executables built out of the libraries
above, which form the main part of the user interface.  You can always get help
for a tool by typing <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">tool_name</span> <span class="pre">-help</span></code>.  The following is a brief introduction
to the most important tools.  More detailed information is in
the <a class="reference external" href="CommandGuide/index.html">Command Guide</a>.</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">bugpoint</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">bugpoint</span></code> is used to debug optimization passes or code generation backends
by narrowing down the given test case to the minimum number of passes and/or
instructions that still cause a problem, whether it is a crash or
miscompilation. See <a class="reference external" href="HowToSubmitABug.html">HowToSubmitABug.html</a> for more information on using
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">bugpoint</span></code>.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-ar</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>The archiver produces an archive containing the given LLVM bitcode files,
optionally with an index for faster lookup.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-as</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>The assembler transforms the human readable LLVM assembly to LLVM bitcode.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-dis</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>The disassembler transforms the LLVM bitcode to human readable LLVM assembly.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-link</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-link</span></code>, not surprisingly, links multiple LLVM modules into a single
program.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lli</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lli</span></code> is the LLVM interpreter, which can directly execute LLVM bitcode
(although very slowly…). For architectures that support it (currently x86,
Sparc, and PowerPC), by default, <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">lli</span></code> will function as a Just-In-Time
compiler (if the functionality was compiled in), and will execute the code
<em>much</em> faster than the interpreter.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llc</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llc</span></code> is the LLVM backend compiler, which translates LLVM bitcode to a
native code assembly file.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">opt</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">opt</span></code> reads LLVM bitcode, applies a series of LLVM to LLVM transformations
(which are specified on the command line), and outputs the resultant
bitcode.   ‘<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">opt</span> <span class="pre">-help</span></code>’  is a good way to get a list of the
program transformations available in LLVM.</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">opt</span></code> can also  run a specific analysis on an input LLVM bitcode
file and print  the results.  Primarily useful for debugging
analyses, or familiarizing yourself with what an analysis does.</p>
</div></blockquote>
</div>
<div class="section" id="llvm-utils">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id31"><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm/utils</span></code></a><a class="headerlink" href="#llvm-utils" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<p>Utilities for working with LLVM source code; some are part of the build process
because they are code generators for parts of the infrastructure.</p>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">codegen-diff</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">codegen-diff</span></code> finds differences between code that LLC
generates and code that LLI generates. This is useful if you are
debugging one of them, assuming that the other generates correct output. For
the full user manual, run <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">`perldoc</span> <span class="pre">codegen-diff'</span></code>.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">emacs/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Emacs and XEmacs syntax highlighting  for LLVM   assembly files and TableGen
description files.  See the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">README</span></code> for information on using them.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">getsrcs.sh</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Finds and outputs all non-generated source files,
useful if one wishes to do a lot of development across directories
and does not want to find each file. One way to use it is to run,
for example: <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">xemacs</span> <span class="pre">`utils/getsources.sh`</span></code> from the top of the LLVM source
tree.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvmgrep</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Performs an <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">egrep</span> <span class="pre">-H</span> <span class="pre">-n</span></code> on each source file in LLVM and
passes to it a regular expression provided on <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvmgrep</span></code>’s command
line. This is an efficient way of searching the source base for a
particular regular expression.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">TableGen/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>Contains the tool used to generate register
descriptions, instruction set descriptions, and even assemblers from common
TableGen description files.</p>
</div></blockquote>
<p><code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">vim/</span></code></p>
<blockquote>
<div><p>vim syntax-highlighting for LLVM assembly files
and TableGen description files. See the    <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">README</span></code> for how to use them.</p>
</div></blockquote>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="an-example-using-the-llvm-tool-chain">
<span id="simple-example"></span><h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id32">An Example Using the LLVM Tool Chain</a><a class="headerlink" href="#an-example-using-the-llvm-tool-chain" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>This section gives an example of using LLVM with the Clang front end.</p>
<div class="section" id="example-with-clang">
<h3><a class="toc-backref" href="#id33">Example with clang</a><a class="headerlink" href="#example-with-clang" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h3>
<ol class="arabic">
<li><p>First, create a simple C file, name it ‘hello.c’:</p>
<div class="highlight-c notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="cp">#include</span> <span class="cpf">&lt;stdio.h&gt;</span><span class="cp"></span>

<span class="kt">int</span> <span class="nf">main</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="p">{</span>
  <span class="n">printf</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">&quot;hello world</span><span class="se">\n</span><span class="s">&quot;</span><span class="p">);</span>
  <span class="k">return</span> <span class="mi">0</span><span class="p">;</span>
<span class="p">}</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
<li><p>Next, compile the C file into a native executable:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> clang hello.c -o hello
</pre></div>
</div>
<div class="admonition note">
<p class="admonition-title">Note</p>
<p>Clang works just like GCC by default.  The standard -S and -c arguments
work as usual (producing a native .s or .o file, respectively).</p>
</div>
</li>
<li><p>Next, compile the C file into an LLVM bitcode file:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> clang -O3 -emit-llvm hello.c -c -o hello.bc
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The -emit-llvm option can be used with the -S or -c options to emit an LLVM
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">.ll</span></code> or <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">.bc</span></code> file (respectively) for the code.  This allows you to use
the <a class="reference external" href="CommandGuide/index.html">standard LLVM tools</a> on the bitcode file.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Run the program in both forms. To run the program, use:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> ./hello
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>and</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> lli hello.bc
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>The second examples shows how to invoke the LLVM JIT, <a class="reference internal" href="CommandGuide/lli.html"><span class="doc">lli</span></a>.</p>
</li>
<li><p>Use the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">llvm-dis</span></code> utility to take a look at the LLVM assembly code:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> llvm-dis &lt; hello.bc <span class="p">|</span> less
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
<li><p>Compile the program to native assembly using the LLC code generator:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> llc hello.bc -o hello.s
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
<li><p>Assemble the native assembly language file into a program:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> /opt/SUNWspro/bin/cc -xarch<span class="o">=</span>v9 hello.s -o hello.native   <span class="c1"># On Solaris</span>

<span class="gp">%</span> gcc hello.s -o hello.native                              <span class="c1"># On others</span>
</pre></div>
</div>
</li>
<li><p>Execute the native code program:</p>
<div class="highlight-console notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="gp">%</span> ./hello.native
</pre></div>
</div>
<p>Note that using clang to compile directly to native code (i.e. when the
<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">-emit-llvm</span></code> option is not present) does steps 6/7/8 for you.</p>
</li>
</ol>
</div>
</div>
<div class="section" id="common-problems">
<h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id34">Common Problems</a><a class="headerlink" href="#common-problems" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>If you are having problems building or using LLVM, or if you have any other
general questions about LLVM, please consult the <a class="reference external" href="FAQ.html">Frequently Asked
Questions</a> page.</p>
</div>
<div class="section" id="links">
<span id="id2"></span><h2><a class="toc-backref" href="#id35">Links</a><a class="headerlink" href="#links" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2>
<p>This document is just an <strong>introduction</strong> on how to use LLVM to do some simple
things… there are many more interesting and complicated things that you can do
that aren’t documented here (but we’ll gladly accept a patch if you want to
write something up!).  For more information about LLVM, check out:</p>
<ul class="simple">
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="http://llvm.org/">LLVM Homepage</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="http://llvm.org/doxygen/">LLVM Doxygen Tree</a></p></li>
<li><p><a class="reference external" href="http://llvm.org/docs/Projects.html">Starting a Project that Uses LLVM</a></p></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>


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